Author Topic: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station  (Read 35121 times)

Steve

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Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« on: March 14, 2012, 09:12:27 PM »
I'm cross-posting this from the MacWeather.net forum, as it will be intreated with WeatherCat on my screen and web page.

Good news! Back in January, our Avon-Weather station was featured in the Davis Instruments newsletter. Since then, I was contacted by Davis' PR firm about how we use our station and what we do with the data we gather. Gardening was a big part of the reason we bought a station with the flexibility of the Davis Vantage Pro 2.

Fast forward two months, and today I received a shipping notice from Davis. They are sending us a Wireless Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temperature Station for us to review! They included a soil temp sensor, soil moisture sensor, and a leaf wetness sensor. Plus, a Weatherlink and a Vantage Pro2 Console. I'm not even opening those, as I already have what I need for communicating with my existing system. http://davisnet.com/weather/products/weather_product.asp?pnum=06345

This will allow us to measure soil temperature and moisture levels for spring garden prep and planting. We'll post information as we get the system up and running.

Watch this space! :)
Steve - Avon, Ohio, USA


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WCDev

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2012, 10:23:27 PM »
Congratulations Steve!

Word of warning - don't pull the cable on the soil moisture sensor too hard - it's just cost me ?69  [banghead]

elagache

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Installation lesson? ?? (Re: Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station)
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2012, 12:00:03 AM »
Howdy Steve, Stu, and WeatherCat fans,

Word of warning - don't pull the cable on the soil moisture sensor too hard - it's just cost me ?69  [banghead]

Is there any lessons from that which a prospective soil moisture sensor owner should glean?  Would it be a good idea to put into wrap a bit of steel wire or cable to allow for extracting of the sensor without pulling on the signal cables?

Just a thought . . . . .

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Steve

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2012, 12:18:39 AM »
Thanks Stu. I'll heed your warning.

It is *supposed* to be glued into a pice of PVC pile to protect it. I wonder if everyone does that?

Steve - Avon, Ohio, USA


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elagache

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Oh, the shame!! (Re: Soil Moisture/Temp Station)
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2012, 03:28:43 PM »
Howdy Steve, Stu, and WeatherCat soil monitoring folks,

It is *supposed* to be glued into a pice of PVC pile to protect it. I wonder if everyone does that?

 ;) Oh the shame!!  Steve, how could you!!  Reading da' instructions!!   [lol2]

On da' other hand . . . . . .

Word of warning - don't pull the cable on the soil moisture sensor too hard - it's just cost me ?69

A section of PVC pipe and some glue is a lot cheaper than ?69!! [banghead]

Perhaps I should try to unload some PVC on this forum!!  ;)

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

jace

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2012, 04:46:45 PM »
Just don't have a 'cat' that likes the smell of PVC and tries to dig it up  [lol2]

JC

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2012, 06:54:27 PM »
Lol, yeah right, I'm getting the message  [spin]

However, in my defence, mine is planted under the lawn (in a trench)  :)

As you can see from the attached pic, my new one was 'planted' yesterday and is currently very wet.

Steve

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2012, 08:11:43 PM »
Stu,

Is there any preferred installation location for the leaf wetness sensor itself? There's nothing in the manual, and I wrote Davis yesterday asking, but haven't heard back. I didn't know if there's an optimum height, pointed toward or away from the sun, etc.

Thanks,
Steve
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WCDev

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2012, 08:29:29 PM »
Hi Steve,
Honest answer is I don't know.

Mine is mounted 6 foot above grass facing away from the sun - you can see from the above pic that this morning there was a dew forming, which evaporated pretty quickly once the sun came up.

Hope this helps,
Stu.

Steve

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2012, 08:54:41 PM »
Thanks,

I kinda thought away from the sun made the most sense, as the leaves on all but the southeast most plants would still be shaded.

That's what I'll do!
Thanks
Steve - Avon, Ohio, USA


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Steve

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #10 on: March 16, 2012, 01:26:52 AM »
I got a reply from Davis a bit ago.

Quote
Mount it anywhere nearby that is open to the air, on a post or U-bolted to a mast.

The idea is that it is a faux "Leaf".  Mount it so that the overnight dew will collect upon it like a typical leaf.

I would "point" it to the north, so that it will be slower to evaporate, like some or many of the leaves on your plants, which may be in the shade.
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Steve

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2012, 02:41:02 AM »
As an amateur photographer, I tend to document all my hobby how-to projects. I know I'm not the first person here to install a Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station, and I'm sure there are a lot of folks who can interpret the information gleaned from it a lot better than I will. And since Davis sent this to me to review, what better way than for those of you not familiar with the station to watch as I learn. Larger images can be seen on my SmugMug gallery. (CLICK HERE) Click the thumbnail to see a larger image, and then click the large image to see a full screen version.

I'm cross-posting this on the MacWeather.net and WXforum.net forum, and portions will be on my Facebook page.

Anyway, I'll be like the tech guys and do an "unboxing" thingy here.




Here are all the pieces parts still in their package.




All the parts unwrapped except the WeatherLink data logger and VP2 Console. I'll use my setup, and add the Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station on another channel.




Here is the complete station set up to test functioning and reception. On the lid is the Leaf Wetness sensor, the green sensor is the Soil Moisture Sensor, and the probe with the black wire is the Soil Temperature sensor. Plugging the Soil Temperature and Moisture sensors on the same channel (in this phot the Soil Moisture is mistakenly in #4, but I moved it to #1 for testing) allows the Soil Moisture to use the Soil Temperature in its calculation. If they are not on the same channel, the Soil Moisture is calculated assuming that the temperature of the soil is 75˚F.



I mounted the Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station transmitter on the same post as my VP2 ISS is mounted. I set the transmitter as Station #3, and added it to my VP2 Console and, using WeatherLink for Mac, set the Weather Envoy to use Station #3



No photos yet, but I've temporarily mounted the Leaf Wetness sensor on a steel rod driven into the ground beside my ISS post. The U-bolt is too small to fit the post everything else is mounted on. I think I'll use a 1" galvanized post and mount both the transmitter and Leaf Wetness se?or on the same post. That way I won't have wires to run from one to the other. I temporarily stuck the Soil Temperature sensor in the ground in the raised bed garden plot barely visible in the last photo above. I'm also "conditioning" the Soil Wetness sensor, as described in the installation instructions, by soaking, drying, then soaking again before planting it in the soil. I have some schedule 40 1/2" PVC, but the walls are too thick to insert the Soil Moisture sensor as shown in the manual. I'll drill it out a bit until it fits.

My soil here is very sandy, as we live on an ancient beach. All of our gardens and raised beds have been amended with a *lot* of compost, manure, and peat moss. In the raised beds, I can easily stick my hand down a foot into the soil, so it drains quickly. I might add a second Soil Temperature and Moisture sensor and bury them deeper in one of the other beds where we grow perennial crops, such as strawberries, grapes, rhubarb, or raspberries. The soil here is less disturbed and might give a better indication of the condition of the soil in the rest of our perennial flower beds and yard.

As I noted above, I added the Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station as Station #3 on the VP2 Console and WeatherLink. While I was at it, I swapped Station #1 and #2, making the ISS Station #2 and the Wireless Anemometer Transmitter Station #1. This will take advantage of the more frequent readings of Station #1 for the wind, which is the most changeable.

I'm using the public beta of Trixology's WeatherCat (Formerly Lightsoft Weather Center) on my Mac to view the data from the Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station. The Leaf Wetness has been a flatline at zero since installing, but worked fine in pre-testing. I'll see if we have dew in the morning. The soil temperature was 62˚F when I installed it late this afternoon, and has dropped to 59˚F here at 10:30 pm. That's just amazing, as out ground is normally frozen solid this time of year!




That's all I've got right now. I'll get more done tomorrow and add some more photos. Thanks for reading along, and feel free to comment or offer advices.
Steve
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elagache

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How thorough can you get? (Re: Review Soil Moisture/Temp Station)
« Reply #12 on: March 16, 2012, 06:13:13 PM »
Howdy Steve and WeatherCat fans,

 ;) Golly how thorough can you get!  About the only thing you didn't photograph is the delivery truck and driver!!  [lol2]

Well, this will take me a little time to digest . . . . . right now I'm still coping with da' storm[rain2] 

However, thank you for going to such care to document all this!  [tup]

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

P.S. Why didn't you take photos of how you embedded the soil sensor in a PVC pipe?  You did put the sensor in a PVC pipe didn't ya?  ;)

WCDev

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #13 on: March 16, 2012, 06:33:09 PM »
Indeed, a nice write-up. Thanks Steve!

Stu.

Steve

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Re: Review & Testing of Davis Leaf & Soil Moisture/Temp Station
« Reply #14 on: March 16, 2012, 07:30:24 PM »
Thanks guys. Over the years, I've sort of acquired a reputation for the thoroughness of my tutorials on various forums. While I was still working, I did some technical documentation on owners manuals and patent applications, so it comes easy.

P.S. Why didn't you take photos of how you embedded the soil sensor in a PVC pipe?  You did put the sensor in a PVC pipe didn't ya?  ;)

I tried, as quoted below. I haven't done more on it yet.


I'm also "conditioning" the Soil Wetness sensor, as described in the installation instructions, by soaking, drying, then soaking again before planting it in the soil. I have some schedule 40 1/2" PVC, but the walls are too thick to insert the Soil Moisture sensor as shown in the manual. I'll drill it out a bit until it fits.
Steve - Avon, Ohio, USA


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